Mr. Jim Breslin:

Certainly given that we do not have a vaccine for Covid-19, I think all of us would want to have step-in power or retainer over the private hospital capacity so that if we did get the kind of surge that we fear, we would be able to move quickly. We would also want to have access to the capacity for priority needs. I think the Deputy is bringing me into the policy space when he asks me about nationalisation. What I can say to him is that the Department of Health completed a bed capacity report which found that if we do all of the reforms that are in Sláintecare and all of the changes that we need to reform and modernise our healthcare services, we will need 2,500 beds. We have probably delivered about 500 of them since that report was completed. If we do not achieve that reform, we will need 7,000 beds. It is well known that we are short of capacity.